Regime Shrugs Off Effects on Burma of Global Economic Crisis

By THE IRRAWADDY

In an article downplaying the effects of the global economic crisis on Burma, the regime’s mouthpiece, The New Light of Myanmar, claims the country will fare better than “extravagant” Americans and unnamed other nations.

Under the headline “We remain unperturbed,” Kyaw Ye Min—apparently the pseudonym of a regime sympathizer—wrote: “In this age of globalization, it hardly needs be said that our country will also be more or less affected by the global crisis. However, we would like to say its effects will not be as bad for our country as others.”

Among those other countries, Kyaw Ye Min names the US. Americans, he says, “are a people who are extravagant and do not hesitate to buy an elephant if it is available on credit.”

Kyaw Ye Min’s unrealistic assessment of the situation echoes a recent statement by Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein, who went even further and said Burma would not be affected at all by the global financial meltdown.

Burma’s business community has good reason to question the optimism of Thein Sein and Kyaw Ye Min.

The financial crisis that began in the United States and rapidly evolved into a once-in-a-generation global economic downturn has by no means spared Burma, a country whose military leaders have long prided themselves on their ability to keep outside influences at bay.

The global slowdown is having a knock-on effect on Burmese business, where a credit crunch has been created by the reluctance of commodity exporters to lend to producers. The banking system is on the verge of collapse.

The value of the country’s exports goods is falling, with several businessmen reporting that exports have been at a standstill for several months.

The only way now for Burma is down—but the country is already at the bottom, unable to fall any further.

Despite all the evidence, the ruling junta remains in denial, unwilling to recognize the seriousness of Burma’s plight.

The Irrawaddy, which has been consistently following the crisis, reported that hundreds of Burmese workers have lost their jobs in Malaysia and Thailand and have been forced to return to Burma—to a country still struggling to recover from the Cyclone Nargis disaster.

In a cynical and probably totally impractical policy statement, Prime Minister Thein Sein said the returning workers could be employed in the cyclone-devastated rice paddies of the Irrawaddy delta.

Sean Turnell, professor of economics at Australia’s Macquarie University and an expert on the Burmese economy, told The Irrawaddy recently that the cyclone damage in the delta was still impeding a return to anything like normal rice production there.

Turnell spoke of “massive loss of farm animals, dykes destroyed, fields in some of the most productive areas inundated for a while with seawater, death and labor shortages, and a government that turns grant-in-aid into loans.”

Even Prime Minister Thein Sein admitted the scale of the disaster, saying recently: “Although Myanmar's [Burma’s] rice production has increased, it can be found that she has not been capable of producing more rice than the nations that are smaller and have [less] farmland than Myanmar…Myanmar is to strive for ensuring local self-sufficiency in rice and [exports of] about 3 million tons of rice annually.”

Burma’s moribund economy needs more than workers in the rice fields of the Irrawaddy delta and incapable government ministers in Naypyidaw. Skilled economists unafraid to admit and confront the seriousness of the situation are also urgently required.